Blog Posts by Sarah Fuss, Shine Staff

Giada De Laurentiis hasn't been much of a controversial figure. Some people love her and her heart-shaped face. Others think her shirts are cut too low. But it's nothing that a little bruschetta appetizer couldn't smooth out. Now, in her February cover interview with Redbook, Giada has created an unexpected stir. When asked about balancing family and career she said this:

"So when I'm home, I work very hard to be Todd's wife and Jade's mother. I have no problem going back to those traditional roles. I try to be Giada, the young girl that he met 20 years ago and fell in love with. All men want to be treated like kings in a relationship, and I think if women don't indulge that sometimes, their men are likely to stray and look for someone who can give that to them."

"Must. Not. Judge. UGGGHHH. Really, Giada? Thank you, Mamie Eisenhower," goes the commentary in Celebitchy, one of many critical responses to her interview that can be found on the internet this week.

In the minority are

What happens in my fro-yo container, stays there. It does not leave with me, or my thighs. I can enjoy a quarter-pint's worth of cake frosting-flavored frozen yogurt along with dabs of cookies and cream and white chocolate frozen yogurt, and it's all good. I can top it with brownie crumbles, Fruity Pebbles, and it never counted. It's like I have a diplomatic license plate -- for dessert. I'm immune.

At least part of me believed this was true. I became hypnotized when I entered one of those frozen yogurt palaces. Gourmet Live, the online reincarnation of Gourmet magazine, is familiar with this kind of cold denial. This month they set the record straight with their story, "Fro-Yo Fallacy." They break it down. And if you're as far gone as I was, it's kind of emotional.

They say that frozen yogurt could be marketed as a healthier dessert, but certainly not a healthy dessert, because what it skips in fat and calories, it makes up for in sugar. Gourmet Live says one small cup of Original

In case anyone was still clinging to the low price of fast food to rationalize their drive-thru habit, there's this: KFC's chicken pot pies are about $5 each, same for Burger King meals. As bestselling cookbook author Mark Bittman wrote in The New York Times recently, "so much for the myth of cheap fast food."

Mark's new book, "The Food Matters Cookbook," is about making healthy eating accessible, easy on the environment, but not restrictive. So, I asked him what cooking tips he had for extremely busy people who find themselves buying take out more than they want to, and who don't eat as healthily as they hope to.

First: Keep your pantry stocked. If you've got whole grains, beans, pasta, olive oil, canned or boxed tomatoes, dried herbs and spices, and a few other things in your cupboard, you're most of the way there. These ingredients keep for ages, so you can buy them in bulk without fear. Once you've got the basics covered, you only have to go grocery shopping for more

When I read that Gordon Ramsay had been doused in gasoline and threatened at gunpoint by gangsters, I felt concern, but I have to admit it sort of seemed like a logical next step. Last time I saw the tousled-haired chef on TV he was converting his childhood traumas into shrieking tirades at apprentice chefs on Hell's Kitchen, and I was vowing to never watch him scream another word. I felt bad when I went on to read that these recent acts of violence against Ramsay transpired during his effort to expose shark poachers in the new British series Big Fish Fight, which also stars celeb chefs Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal.

"I managed to shake off the people who were keeping us away, ran up some stairs to a rooftop and looked down to see thousands and thousands of [shark] fins, drying on rooftops for as far as the eye could see," Ramsay told the Daily Mail. "When I got back downstairs, they tipped a barrel of petrol over me." Although cars drove up to block them in, Ramsay said they

by Shine staff

Shine's most inspiring women of the year are truth-tellers, athletes, innovators, survivors, and one is about to be royalty. These leading ladies are by no means the only women of the year that had a lasting effect on us, they are simply a few whose persistent presence in the news made our staff proud. Flip on to read why we believe that these women deserve a nod.

Please add your own nominees to the comments below!

More of Shine's best of the 2010:

The best things we bought this year

The best, worst, and kookiest quotes of 2010

The best news for women in 2010

You find the funniest things when you're expanding an airport. Chinese archaeologists recently discovered a small bronze vessel filled with 2,400-year-old soup while excavating a tomb near the Xian airport. The soup was still in liquid form because of how airtight the tomb had been. It contained several bones, and had turned an ectoplasm shade of green due to the oxidization of the bronze container it had been left in. This made us wonder what foods of today might survive 2,400 years. Here are some top candidates...

What foods do you believe won't die?

Oftentimes the language of cookbooks leaves us bewildered. Is that flame medium-low? Is this done? What do they mean cook the sauce until it's lightly syrupy? This is when we'd traditionally put down the tongs and pick up the phone to call mom or a friend. Now we have another culinary pistol in our arsenal. When the language of braising, baking, or broiling falls short, YouTube does not. Enter "how to braise" in their search box and 2,460 results are returned. With evermore fingers reaching for the keyboard during tough kitchen times, we're eager to know which demonstrations are being watched the most. Here's YouTube's list from one to 20...



1. Easter Cake - How to Make a Bunny Cake
507,338 views

2. Chocolate Sea Salt Crostini - Savory Chocolate Appetizer
315,974 views

3. Pizza margherita, video recipe
251,884 views

This week on the user-driven website Reddit.com, a Starbucks employee posted a story about how to get the very most for your buck at the popular (and sometimes unpopular) coffee chain. Entitled "Starbucks Hacks," the posting is a detailed guide on how to make sure your coffee is fresh and costs less. Since we were just informed that even kazillionaires Victoria and David Beckham adore freebies, we feel like the rest of us deserve to be privy to such penny-pinching insider tips.

The writer, whose wonderfully apt user name is therewillbesnacks, has a scholarly knowledge of the menu. Here are three of our favorite ordering tips from the detailed post (typos included):

- "If you like iced drinks, asking for a triple espresso in a Venti cup over ice, and then filling it with milk after the fact at the condiment bar is a great way to get an iced latte for about 2 dollars."

-"If you and a friend are out and want a Frappuccino, ask for a Venti split into two tall cups. Iced venti cups are 24